Did you Get Lost in the Garden?

Part 11 of The Home Garden’s weekly series about gardening on a budget (aka gardening cheap!)Layering is a fantastic way to increase your plants with very little risk and a high rate of success. It is a simple method of plant propagation where roots are encouraged to develop by covering stems and branches with soil or other mediums. There are…

Several weeks ago I wrote a post about one of my favorite shrubs, the Japanese Dappled Willow ‘Hakuro Nishiki’ (Salix integra). It’s a fast growing variegated willow that works well as a privacy screen and is hardy in zones 4-9. It’s deciduous so it will be bare over the winter but the new growth in the spring time is fun…

By far my favorite plant from the vegetable garden is the tomato.  I don’t buy them from the stores if I can help it as there is very little flavor to be found in store bought tomatoes.  Fresh from the garden is how a tomato should be.  Today on a gray overcast winter day I’m looking back at the tomatoes…

Several weeks ago I planted Baptisia australis seeds. It’s also known as false indigo. It took some time but with bottom heat from my seedling heat mat and continued patience several of the seedlings have sprouted.  It’s always exciting to see new plants come alive from seed.  It took the Baptisia seeds about a month to germinate.  Please note one…

As real gardening time approaches and we stop planning and dreaming to actually begin planting we have to know what we are going to do with our gardens. The big thing on my mind lately has been the vegetable garden. I miss the tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers that came out of our garden fresh everyday. I want to grow more…

A line of storms came through last night dropping the temperature nearly 20 degrees in an hour. Strong rain and wind blew all over Tennessee. Here in our yard we received about an inch of rain throughout the day. Fortunately our damage was minimal. Probably the worst thing affected was our sleep. The neighbor’s fence gate blew open and their…

This weekend was a busy one in the garden! The weather was sunny, although with a fair amount of wind on Saturday but Sunday afternoon was very pleasant.  This time of year is always exciting.  Gardening activities are resuming in earnest and a lot can be done to prepare for a great gardening season.  On Saturday we began working on…

The rains finally came! I know gardeners everywhere in Tennessee were excited to get this latest blast of precipitation. The front moved through yesterday in the late morning and continued to sprinkle intermittent showers upon us but it wasn’t until the nighttime hours that the real rains washed away the dust of August and September. The rain gauge picked up…

I realized today that I left off a very important chore that I’ll need to do very soon, grass overseeding!Fall Grass Overseeding. I need to spread grass seed over our existing lawn. Last year I used Kentucky 31 fescue and our lawn looked great in the spring. It browned up over the summer since fescue is a cool season grass…

Now wouldn’t this be cool to have in the yard? No not the gnomes, the green roof! I took this picture last year at the Bloom’N Garden Expo in Williamson County last year. It’s a great example of nature and man working together to make something good for both. Green roofs are catching on all over because they help to…

It’s January and my garden is a mess.  That’s OK because it’s January!  My garden could be the perfect mixture of evergreen conifers and winter color landscape plantings specifically designed to brighten the gloomiest winter day, but it’s not.  I would love that, but my garden was never put together for the winter color.  I’m gradually adding plants for that…

The answer to today’s Name that Seed is the White Ash! The White Ash is a dioecious deciduous shade tree that grows to nearly 80 feet tall. Dioecious means that individual trees (or plants) are either male or female and not both, very similar to hollies. Last week I featured the Persimmon in a Name that Seed post which is…

What does a gardener’s garage look like?  Before you put an image into your mind please realize that the photo I’m about to show you is extremely embarrassing.  My garage has never been a priority for me – the garden has been!  When you add three kids to the mix who never seem to be able to put something back…

This time of year it isn’t unusual to see the garden in a crystallized form.  Wet winter weather insures that enough moisture is around to turn the landscape into a frosted garden.  The unique appearance of the frosted garden gives the gardener a great opportunity to play around with some photography.  Here are a few photos from this morning at…

This Saturday is the Middle Tennessee Plant Swap at Henry Horton Park. This is a fantastic opportunity to talk to other gardeners and exchange those extra plants you don’t need for some you do! If you haven’t already gotten your plants ready you should do that ASAP to give them time to recover from any potential plant shock. Exchanges aren’t…

Today was a snow day. The kind of day that happens here in Tennessee on occasion where 6-8 inches of snow fall upon us and whiten up the landscape for a few hours. It melts fast which is good for those who need to travel but unfortunately not for those who attend school! This little bluebird was the first to…

Today I sat down during a massive deluge of precipitation and came to a realization, I’m a seed collecting addict. It wasn’t a conscious choice to collect all these seeds, it kind of just happened over time. I counted 53 varieties of vegetables and 16 varieties of herbs. I didn’t even attempt to count the ornamental and flower seeds that…

In this continuing series of edible landscaping we’re going to discuss more elements that should be in the sustainable edible landscape plan. In the last post we brought up the importance of good soil and water systems as well as having a good way to take care of pests.  If you’re new to this series of posts please check out…